Editor 's note : Jack Cafferty is the author of a new book , `` Now or Never : Getting Down to the Business of Saving Our American Dream , '' to be published in March . He provides commentary on CNN 's `` The Situation Room '' daily from 4 to 7 p.m. ET . You can also visit Jack 's Cafferty File blog .

Jack Cafferty says Michelle Obama understands that the White House is the `` people 's house . ''

NEW YORK -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- I think I am developing a crush on America 's first lady . Michelle Obama is more compelling than her husband . He 's good , but she 's utterly fascinating .

Mrs. Obama has blown away the stale air in a White House musty from eight years of the Bushes . It 's like the sun came out and a fresh spring breeze began wafting through the open windows .

It 's the people 's house , and Michelle Obama totally gets it . So much so that she has taken to inviting people in from the streets to see her home . Nice touch -- one completely lacking in her recent predecessors .

Watch her when she visits a local school and you see the warmth and affection she instantly triggers in people . Kids are pretty much totally honest with very good BS-detectors . If they sense you 're a phony , forget it . But around the first lady , they want to hug her and laugh with her and tell her stories .

You can see the same qualities these kids recognize in her daughters . She is the consummate mother as evidenced by the poised , polite smiling children she and her husband are raising . I have four daughters , and trust me -- they do n't turn out like the Obama children without devoted parents .

New to the Washington neighborhood , Michelle Obama has taken it upon herself to go around and introduce herself to the people in the various agencies of government . When 's the last time a first lady did that ? I do n't ever remember it before . And during her visits she listens rather than lectures . And people respond to her .

She was raised on the south side of Chicago by blue-collar parents . She went to Princeton University , and Harvard Law School . But in many ways she 's still a kid from the south side of Chicago , and that 's what makes her special . She knows exactly who she is .

The Obamas bring a humanity and humility to their tasks which sets them far apart from the run-of-the mill phonies who populate Washington . It 's exactly what the doctor ordered for this wounded nation .

Michelle Obama 's unassuming , but dead-on , sense of style has the fashion press gushing all over itself .

Her arms are becoming the stuff of legend . Who appears sleeveless on the cover of Vogue , let alone in front of a joint session of Congress while her husband delivers one of the most important speeches of his life ? And the reviews were rave .

Cindi Leive , the editor of Glamour magazine gushed , `` Oh my god ! The first lady has bare arms in Congress in February at night ! '' If she keeps it up , Seventh Avenue will soon stop making women 's clothes with sleeves .

Ok , I admit it . When it comes to the first lady , I 'm smitten .

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Jack Cafferty .

@highlight

Jack Cafferty : Michelle Obama is blazing a new path as first lady

@highlight

She understands that the White House is the `` people 's house , '' he says

@highlight

Cafferty : She is welcoming all kinds of people and government workers

@highlight

He says her sense of style is winning support from the fashion world